88 comments:

Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

After drinking their way through the Big Game, I wonder how many folks will feel a little green tomorrow. I suppose we could play off all the team colors, and suppose some folks will be blue (sad), or red (angry), as well.

One of the "pregame" hints led me to the answer, and now they seem to just be piling on.Maybe Blaine needs to tighten up security around here.No, it's all right, I probably would have gotten it by tomorrow, anyway.

I think I've got this one. As for something I hope I haven't got, here's a puzzle of my own, I hope you like it. Take the following phrase: THAT SORE PART Drop one letter and rearrange the rest to get something in two words that may or may not be going around this particular season. It's pretty catchy, don't you think?

Green is not the only color associated with Ireland. Orange is the opposing color. The Loyal Orange Institution, more commonly known as the Orange Order, is a Protestant fraternal organisation based primarily in Northern Ireland.

> I may die a critic, but some would object to the spelling of your answer.

Per Wikipedia, the spelling Eire (without the diacritical mark) is generally deplored by Irish-speakers as worse than a misspelling, because eire is a separate word, meaning "a burden, load or encumbrance".

> Musical clue: The Eagles?

Don't they nest in (a)eries?

> Oh, I think today is perfect for it.

Sunday, February 1, was the feast day of St. Brigid, patron saint of Ireland.

> Sorry to be cryptic, but he's up to his old tricks again.

In Sunday's New York Times Cryptic Crossword, 22-D: "Odd East Indian": EERIE.

EIRE = Ireland. Check out the pronunciations (British & American) of EIRE HERE. There are probably few Americans who know how to pronounce EIRE correctly. “Potato/potahto” good clue WW!Then there are the little too obvious references to EERIE clues such as Chuck's “odd feeling” & Rob's “strange melody,” etc.

Embarrassing that it took so long to get this as I live/work in the U.S. city... Just figured we weren't popular enough anymore to be the actual answer. (Also, my first post here. I've been following along for years!)

My hints were security (for first Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, from Erie, PA) and tomorrow (which,on Sunday, was Groundhog Day, an interruption of the hibernation of certain marmots -- Hibernia seems not to be etymologically related, however).SERIES, believe it or not, was an accident. I noticed it immediately after posting, but decided to let it stand and see if the context provided adequate camouflage.

Next week's challenge: The challenge comes from listener Peter Collins of Ann Arbor, Mich. Name someone who's the subject of many jokes; two words. Remove the space between the words. Insert the letters O and N in that order — not necessarily consecutively — inside this string of letters. The result, reading from left to right, will be two words of opposite meaning that this someone might say. Who is it, and what are the words?